ISLAMABAD, Oct 06 (APP): The experts on Friday urged the government to establish credible scientific evidence to ensure the materialization of its claims for the loss and damage fund to claim reparations for the damages it had borne due to climate catastrophes.
Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, Advisor World Bank remarked that Pakistan needs serious course correction and better comprehension of eligibility criteria for global loss and damage fund. This is crucial to overcome challenges hindering the country’s access to global finances needed to boost the resilience of vulnerable countries against climate change.
He was speaking at a seminar titled “The Potential of Pakistan’s Case for Claiming Reparation for Loss and Damage in the aftermath of Floods 2022” organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in collaboration with Oxfam and partners. The seminar is the fourth in the series held in collaboration with Oxfam-Pakistan
Ali Tauqeer Sheikh stressed establishing a clear definition of loss and damage in policy documents and building the capacity of the bureaucrats about pledges made under NDCs so they can develop more competitive climate financing proposals.
He elucidated that under the NDCs Pakistan committed to undertake assessment of loss and damage, costing of losses and augmenting data management and integration of evidence. The low progress in their achievement remains a key objection/criticism when climate finance projects are applied.
He proposed developing a holistic and consistent definition of loss and damage to enable the convergence of national and sub-national efforts.
Dr Shafqat Munir, Deputy Executive Director, SDPI, highlighted that Pakistan is vulnerable to various kinds of climatic disasters, direct and indirect hazards, with macroeconomic imbalances further exacerbating after recurrent climatic disasters.
He highlighted that 2022 floods submerged one-third of the country under water, displaced around 8 million people, and affected 33 million people with Sindh being the worst affected province with close to 70% of total damages and losses.
These significant losses revealed that the country has weak DRR capacity coupled with inaction in addressing climatic hazards.
He pointed out that establishing a global climate-induced loss and damage fund has been in discussion since the early 1990 with Pakistan playing an instrumental role in the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 in 2022 in the aftermath of the 2022 floods. However, the operationalization of the fund at the global level is yet to be achieved.
He highlighted that Pakistan’s financing case is weakened due to the unavailability of substantial evidence of the adverse impacts of climate change in lieu of loss and damage. He further stressed aligning the climate financing proposals with SDGs, adopting a whole-of-society approach for climate action and connecting with finance with mid-term budgetary frameworks to bridge financing gaps.
Expert of Climate Finance Kashmala Kakakhel remarked that Pakistan pleaded a strong case at the international forums and the interim foreign minister also pleaded the country’s stance on loss and damage fund. However, the country needs to proactively build its loss and damage case around the five pressing questions debated in the transitional committee meetings held to work out the modalities of the fund.
The pressing queries underscore the source of the fund, the financing streams, the place of establishing the fund, eligibility of the countries, purpose, and mechanism of transferring the finances through the fund, she added.
Zainab Naeem, Associate Research Fellow, SDPI highlighted that developing countries particularly Pakistan and Libya have very strongly advocated the case for the Loss and Damage Fund.
However, there are quite aggressive counterarguments conditioning the fund with fossil fuel-based projects and economies. Developing countries are unjustifiably forced to adopt transformative pathways even though they are already bearing the burden of debt traps, economic and climate crises, and geopolitical issues.
She stressed that Pakistan must build a strong case by supporting it with data and evidence, demonstrating the interlinkages and indirect losses in the form of food security, heatwaves, urbanization etc.
APP/ajb-usg
